U.S. House of Representatives

Shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday night, Republican Del. Barbara Comstock entered the Hilton ballroom in Ashburn to the tune of her favorite song - “This One’s for the Girls” sung by Martina McBride.
The sassy, defiant country anthem – which tells girls to “stand your ground when everyone’s giving in” – struck the right chord with Comstock’s supporters, who chanted and clapped along with the music as Comstock took the stage to deliver her victory speech.

As Huey Lewis and the News’ “Power of Love” poppy ballad led a soundtrack infused with ’80s pop and modern country music, the mood at the DoubleTree Crystal City hotel in Arlington ebbed and flowed between elated cheers and frustrated boos.

Single voting method helps streamline the process.

When it comes to voting, paper is the past, the present and the future. The assistant chief election officer at Robinson Secondary school James Emery Jr. of Fairfax said paper is too valuable as a voting record to abandon.

Local academics following the 11th Districts race say there’s really no substitute for the strength of incumbency.

Despite low public opinion of President Obama and a minimally productive Congress, representative Gerry Connolly has plenty going for him as the incumbent seeking re-election in Virginia’s largely democratic 11th district.

Complete ballot of 11th District candidates faced off in Lake Ridge.

It wasn’t so much a down and dirty debate as a no-frills four-way question-and-answer session. Not that AARP and the League of Women Voters of the Fairfax Area (LWVFA), two of the sponsors of the “Meet the Candidates” series billed the Oct. 14 event as such. Tuesday’s meeting was the penultimate of seven events in the series.

Marc Harrold, Libertarian; Joe Galdo, Green, run for Congress.

Marc Harrold is a self-professed creature of habit. He’s been going to the same bars and restaurants near his Fairfax home for years, where the close friends he’s made there say his great sense of humor and diverse intelligence help him “hold court” and converse easily with anyone, on any subject.

Don Beyer likes climbing mountains. One of his two current dreams is to climb a via feratta, one of the climbing routes along the alps. Beyer has a certain fascination with the Eiger, or “The North Wall.” For Beyer, the appeal is in the challenge.

On the campaign trail with Edmond.

Colleagues say Gerry Connolly’s vision central to productivity.

Gerry Connolly doesn’t have 20/20 vision. His round wire-framed spectacles and cropped salt-and-pepper mustache have long accessorized his look, whether sporting a black pinstripe suit or a billowy navy University of Virginia windbreaker

GOP candidate Barbara Comstock believes a woman's place is in the House ... of Representatives.

It’s just weeks before Election Day, and the contest to replace retiring Republican Congressman Frank Wolf in Virginia’s 10th Congressional district has become one of the most watched, most expensive and most contentious races in the country.

Q: What do you think are your top three accomplishments in office?
A: * The Silver Line. I wasn’t alone, but I'm very proud of my championship of the Silver Line and the fact that it's up and running and succeeding. It took 19 years to sort of get people to reimagine it and get it built. It was a long, tough struggle.

Barbara Comstock, the Republican candidate in the hotly-contested 10th district Congressional race, was on a tight schedule. After speaking before a crowd of military veterans on Saturday morning, her campaign staff was nudging her out the door, reminding the candidate that the breakfast was the first of several campaign events on her calendar that day.